Re-Thinking the Christian Worldview

August 18, 2013

A View of Middle East from The Middle East

A friend of mine from Jordan sent me this picture of a Catholic Mass the other day in Egypt. As the parishioners gathered for their weekly worship, a group of Muslims stood on the outside of the building in solidarity to keep the peace in the wake of extreme persecution.

When I looked at the picture, my eyes welled up with thankfulness. I saw a picture of the world that most media outlets never report on. Most of the media I see paints a picture of the violent Middle Easterners always ready to take out any Christians. Certainly there are those people, but in a small shining light of unity, These Egyptian Muslims stood to protect instead of to harm.

It took me to a place where I wonder....

How many of us can even think it possible that a group of Muslims from Egypt would care enough for Christians to worship they would stand together to show the world there are places we can live in peace?

Then I started thinking, how many Christians would stand in front of their local mosque in the face violent protesters to protect the right for a muslim group to worship?

Look, both groups have differences. There are major theological problems we need to sort out.But what would the world look like if we loved people for people, instead of loving them through our lens of right-ness.

Much like Jesus' parable of the Good Samaritan, our neighbors can be people we often think of as the most unlikely to help, but in the end, there are good people in the world who can see beyond their differences.